KTracy.com Is Private Again

Not that we host any content here you really should be worried about, but the Google trackers that provided access to Google Analytics and Google AdSense is officially removed from KTracy.com.

Realistically, most of you come here using Google Chrome; which has all of those trackers built in. However, there are several reasons why I've made this move and privacy isn't at the top of the list.

Ad Placement Has Been Awful

There are times that Google has placed ads in REALLY unfortunate spots in my website's theme, including in the header. Yes, it's prime real estate, but that's for MY BRANDING! I don't want another brand in my branding area!

Additionally, I directed Google to put ads in my sidebars that were vertically long banners. However, I can't tell you how many times I've received e-mails from readers complaining that a square ad busted past the borders of one of my sidebars and covered text or other content on the page. It's like Google had square ads to run that day and my preferences be damned. I'm only the one hand coding this website and creating all of its content. What do my preferences matter to Google AdSense?

Ad Revenue is REALLY bad

How bad? We're talking pennies a day if I'm SUPER lucky! I get that ad revenue is down for creators across all platforms. As we continue to march towards 1,000 subscribers on my YouTube channel (the number required to monetize your channel), I'm sure I'm going to find myself frustrated by Google's low payouts there, as well. I don't know why ad revenue is down so bad. Perhaps Google has saturated the market with the excessive ads playing on every YouTube video. However, due to the out of control Bidenflation (Biden era inflation), I'm inclined to think that advertising has actually gotten more expensive and profits are actually up for Google in one way or another when it comes to the ad market.

Conspiracy theories about Google payouts aside, the fact remains that Google is giving creators like me significantly less than a tenth of a penny for each ad shown. At the end of the day, the space on my website is worth MUCH more to me than that.

Are THAT many of you using Ad Blockers?

So, according to Google Analytics, I'm only getting about 22% of the internet traffic that I'm getting according to Awstats. The difference is that my visitors can't block a passive traffic system like Awstats; but because Google Analytics are active trackers, they're much easier to block. However, I don't believe for a minute that 78% of my traffic is blocking the Google trackers that make Analytics work.

That's not even the worst of it though. Of the 22% of my Awstats traffic that Google Analytics says I get, Google AdSense is supposedly only serving 17 ads a day. Now, I use an adblocker. I'm sure many, maybe even most, of you use Ad Blockers. However, I know that my parents, neighbors, and friends check my site on a daily basis and most of them are not using ad blockers... largely because they disabled those ad blockers on KTracy.com to help me make some extra money to keep the site funding itself.

According to Adsense, for one reason or another, Google isn't serving ads on more than 99.9% of my visitors. I know there are bots out there (Awstats tracks them, too), but I don't believe the ad serving rate for a minute.

It's MY website!

I keep coming back to this month after month for one reason or another, but KTracy.com is MY website. I never felt comfortable with Google ads on my website because it's other people's content designed to pull people away from my website. However, it was my understanding that there would be adequate financial compensation for allowing the ads on my website. The adequate financial compensation never materialized and we're where we are now.

Will I Ever Use Google Ads Again?

I'm not going to rule it out, but I think we're years away from that occurring. If the RPM gets closer to $5/1000 views, I'll consider bringing it back assuming Google does a better job of tracking my traffic.

The KTracy.com Store is open again, and although I haven't been advertising it because I've been busy around the KTracy Palace, I think the returns will once again be much better when I go back to selling comics, art, decals, and apparel from our own store.

If I use Google AdSense again, it will probably be for the Webcomic alone, but with how bad this past experience was, I'm inclined just to do my own product placements in the comic somehow.